That Vision Thing > Pie-In-The-Sky ASU Downtown Mesa Campus

Cities: The intersection of people and place

The Takeaway

June 26, 2016 · 9:45 AM EDT

By T.J. Raphael (follow) 
Jane Jacobs, the mother of urban planning, warned the world more than a decade ago about grandiose developers peddling utopian urban visions.
This is one of the troubles with what I call the 'vision' thing," Jacobs said in 2004. "The vision thing is an idea that somewhere or other in the future is a golden age we should be working toward, and when we get it, boy won't that be great."

Now, Roberta Brandes Gratz, an urban planner and friend of Jacobs, is carrying forward that skepticism. She says that the buzz around “smart cities” presents an opportunity to think both enthusiastically and cautiously about the future of urban development.

Brandes Gratz is founder of the Center for the Living City and author of "We're Still Here Ya Bastards: How the People of New Orleans Rebuilt Their City.” She says that while the "smart city" may be the latest trend in urban planning, the fundamental building blocks of cities haven't changed.